The psychopathic leaders of America

Summary: Slowly we begin to hear the warnings about our leaders. America is not a meritocracy, and our system promotes people with the traits of psychopaths. A cold hard insight that can help us choose better leaders for our future.

This is a good step for America: “Why It Pays to Be a Jerk” by Jerry Useem, The Atlantic, June 2015 — “New research confirms what they say about nice guys.” Useem shows us harsh facts about America through a soft filter, as the author sells this to us as a good thing.

But it’s a start at progress to see the reality behind the fantasies we used to believe about our leaders.

This news about their character is nothing new to anyone who has dealt with Americans at the top tier of our hierarchies — celebrities, senior corporate officers, and politicians. This has been my experience. What’s new is our recognition of it.

Psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley identified the characteristics of psychopathy, as defined by in his famous 1941 book The Mask of Sanity. Psychology has evolved since then, but this list still services as a good introduction. These are the traits of our leaders, the inner party who run America (and whose upper ranks advance to the bourgeois (the 1% who own America).

Our tolerance for these people, allowing them to zoom up the ladder, services us poorly. While some of these people are successful risk-takers, as a group they’re terrible leaders, making poor decisions and trashing our all-important social cohesion. Our tolerance of them re-enforces their belief that we are sheep.

Perhaps we are acting like sheep. But we need not be sheep. We can push back. Also, I have not found studies of these traits in nations other than the US and UK. I hope they’ve not followed us down this path.

Reblogged this on No Psychos, No Druggies, No Stooges and commented:
“Our tolerance for these people, allowing them to zoom up the ladder, services us poorly. While some of these people are successful risk-takers, as a group they’re terrible leaders, making poor decisions and trashing our all-important social cohesion. Our tolerance of them re-enforces their belief that we are sheep.”

I believe a sense of identify is found in all higher mammals, such as sheep. Certain it’s a fundamental characteristic of people. We have to work to conceal from ourselves that we’ve become sheep, fallen from the standards of the generations of Americans before us.